[extropy-chat] San Francisco NextFest this weekend

[Alan Eliasen]

Adrian Tymes wrote:
>>The exhibits include the Moller Skycar, a
>>four-passenger vehicle from
>>Moller International of Davis. The Jetsons-style
>>craft is small enough
>>to drive on the ground, but can take off vertically
>>and fly as fast as
>>380 mph.
> 
> And is intended for near-ground use only in industrial
> areas.  I had thought they were grounded for want of
> regulatory approval, but they've got that: it's street
> legal, where the noise it generates isn't a problem.
> They're working on reducing the noise so they can get
> approval to run it in residential areas.  (It'll run
> at airports too; I specifically asked about integrated
> airport/residential areas like Cameron Park, where
> every house has a hangar and the streets are made for
> light airplanes to taxi from house to the local
> airstrip, and they said it'd be okay there too.)

   "Drive" is a bit of a stretch, too.  They don't have powered wheels, and
the wheels are about like lawnmower or wagon wheels.  (There's a picture of
find two wheels that match... they're both different, and probably stolen off
someone's lawnmower.)

   You "drive" it like a jet... using thrust from the jets.  Tough to parallel
park, especially with no reverse.

   I'm also willing to bet that they'll never reach their quoted fuel
efficiency figures, when averaged over *any* trip.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift